Cold Hit

Chapter 38

I moved into the back of the dining room. The place was packed and noisy. The predominant language sounded Eastern European-Armenian or Russian. I scanned the room looking for Ringerman.

Halfway down, seated in a wall booth, there he was. Next to him sat Bimini Wright, the Ice Goddess with the silver Jag from the funeral.

I crowded behind a flower arrangement and took pictures of everybody in the restaurant. Then some patrons in the booth next to Ringerman's got up to look at the pastry table. Apparently the priceless rolling cart hadn't made it back from antique repair. I slipped down the aisle between tables and slid into the recently vacated spot next to my targets. Then I turned on the tape and laid it under my jacket close to the next table.

They were speaking softly in Russian. It surprised me that Ringerman and Wright, two Americans, would choose to converse in a foreign language. I couldn't understand a word. They acted like people who were plotting something. I taped them for about ten minutes until the people from my borrowed booth headed back, carrying dessert plates. Then I bailed.

Minutes later, I was back in the Navigator, where Broadway and Perry were still listening to the Lakers game.

"You see him?" Broadway asked.

I scrolled through some digital shots of the two of them.

"Bimini Wright?" Broadway said as soon as he saw her picture. "Maybe the Israelis are using Eddie to build a bridge to the CIA." He looked up at Perry. "Something is sure as shit in the wind." Then he turned to me. "What were they talking about in there?"

"Beats the hell outta me." I punched Play on the tape recorder and we listened while their whispered voices, speaking Russian, filled the car.

We pulled out of Russian Town while Emdee hunched over the tape recorder in the front seat with an open notebook on his lap, translating the conversation. It surprised me that this transplant from South Carolina actually spoke Russian. These two were full of surprises. Listening to my bad recording, I could barely distinguish Eddie Ringerman's whispered baritone or Bimini Wright's elegant soprano. They spoke softly, their voices all but drowned out by the loud background chatter in the restaurant.

"Since they're both American, why are they talking in Russian?" I asked.

"They're both fluent. Both went to spy school. It's the kinda stuff these spooks live for," Broadway said. "Besides, it puts a crick in our dicks when we try to eavesdrop. Now this ignorant cracker gets to practice his night-school Russian."

I glanced out the rear window of the Navigator at traffic piling up at a stoplight half a block behind us. Suddenly, the headlights on a blue Ford Escort swung wide and the car roared around waiting traffic into the oncoming lane. It ran the light and rushed up the street after us.

"She's bitching about something called the Eighty-five Problem," Emdee was saying, playing a section of the tape over. "It happened when she was stationed in Moscow. She's pissed. Eddie is trying to calm her down."

"Bimini Wright was at the U. S. embassy in Moscow for ten years in the mid-eighties and nineties," Broadway said as the tape ran out.

"This all you got?" Emdee complained.

"Yeah. I had to leave the booth I was in."

I was still looking out the rear window. The blue Escort now ducked in behind a Jeep Cherokee, trying to hide.

"Hey, Roger, make a right."

"I don't want to make a right," Broadway said. "I'd like to go back to Parker Center."

"How'd you like to go back to the Tishman Building?"

Broadway grabbed the rearview mirror and repositioned it.

"Which one?"

"Behind the Jeep Cherokee. The blue Escort."

"Get serious," he growled. "Nobody runs a tail in an Escort. They got less horsepower than a Japanese leaf blower."

"Turn right and see what happens."

Roger hung a hard right and started down Pico. A few seconds later we saw the Escort make the same right and follow.

"Go right again," I said.

Roger swung onto a residential street. Only this time, after he rounded the corner, he didn't stick around to watch. He just floored it. We flew down the narrow street over speed bumps that launched the Navigator into the air each time we hit. I wasn't buckled in and shot up into the headliner with the first landing, slamming my head into the roof.

"Ooo-ee!" Rowdy shrieked, loving it.

When Roger got to the end of the street he hung a U and headed straight back toward the pursuing Escort. The two guys in the front seat suddenly started rubbernecking houses, pretending to be looking for an address.

"Look at these two dickwads," Broadway said. "Comedy theater."

We passed them and turned back onto Pico the way we came.

"We need to get outta here, Roger. One of those guys was the steroid case who walked us through the Tishman yesterday."

"Danny Zant, the FBI area commander," Roger said, and floored it again, heading for the freeway.

Just as he did, two more unmarked Toyotas skidded onto Pico, leaning sideways, burning rubber from all four tires with the turn. "Two more bogies," I said. "Blue Toyotas."

Roger had his foot all the way to the floor and the engine in the black Navigator was in a full-throated roar. He found an on ramp for the San Pedro Freeway and flew up onto the eight lanes of concrete, heading east. The next few minutes were a white-knuckle experience. We merged with unusually heavy 11 P. M. traffic. Roger was smoking around slower cars, tailgating, honking his horn, and passing in the service lane. Despite all his frantic driving, every time I looked back, the three federal sedans were still right back there.

"Can't you shake these assholes?" I said. "They're not in Ferraris, it's a flicking Escort and two Toyotas."

"Gotta have more than just stock blocks under the hood," Broadway said.

He put more foot into it, careening between slower vehicles, finally hitting the off ramp at Fifth Street and roaring down the hill toward Parker Center.

"Let's see if these humps want to have it out in the police garage," he said.

He broke a red light at Sixth, and another at Wilshire, then hung another right and headed straight toward the Glass House. The huge, boxy building loomed in front of us.

"Going under," Broadway shouted, sounding like a crazed subcommander as he drove into the garage.

He grabbed his badge, and as we roared up to the guard shack, held his tin out to the rookie probationer guarding the parking structure and frantically signaled the young cop to raise the electronic gate arm. The wooden bar went up and we went down.

I turned just in time to see the Escort flying into the garage after us. The driver didn't wait for the closing arm. He broke right through, snapping it off. Splintered wood went flying. The two Toyotas followed.

The startled police rookie pulled his gun and ran down the ramp. A siren went off somewhere.

Roger held the SUV in a hard right, our tires squealing loudly on the concrete as we descended level after level. Emdee pulled his gun out of his shoulder holster and laid it on his lap.

"You aren't really planning on shooting FBI agents are you?" I asked.

"Depends," Rowdy answered, his mouth set in a hard line.

We finally reached the bottom level, four floors below the street and were flying toward a cement wall.

"Bottom floor," Broadway announced. "Perfume and body bags." The Navigator spun right, and skidded to a stop, inches from the concrete. We bailed out just as the federal sedans squealed to a stop behind us. Doors flew open and six guys with thick necks and hard faces jumped out. Everybody had a badge in one hand and a gun in the other. Then came the shout-off.

"You're under arrest! FBI!"

"Stick it up your ass, Joe Bob!"

"Federal agents! Throw the guns down! Assume the position!"

"Eat me!"

The sound of police sirens now filled the garage, growing louder, echoing in our ears. Seconds later four squad cars, called in by the garage probationer, roared down the ramp and careened to a stop. Eight uniforms from the mid-watch jumped out with guns drawn. I heard more running footsteps pounding on the pavement.

"LAPD! Drop your weapons," a burly uniformed sergeant from an L-car boomed. It was chaos. Everybody was pointing guns, waving badges and screaming.

Then the elevator on the far side of the garage opened and Tony Filosiani charged out, gun in hand. The garage security alarm sounded in his office and had brought him running.

"What the fuck is this?" the Day-Glo Dago bellowed.

"These men are under arrest for failure to heed a direct order from the head of California Homeland Security," Agent Zant shouted hotly. "We're FBI! They're coming with us!"

"No they're not," Tony said.

"This is a federal issue," Zant brayed. "It involves national security."

"No it ain't," Tony yelled back. "It's the LAPD garage, and it involves your fuckin' imminent arrest and custody."

Zant looked startled.

"You guys may not have noticed, but you're way the fuck outnumbered here," Tony growled.

The FBI agents slowly turned. By now thirty cops had them surrounded with their guns drawn. Some were in uniforms, some in plainclothes. The feds turned back to Tony.

"And just who the hell are you, fat boy?" Zant asked angrily.

"I'm the Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department and you six cherries got thirty seconds to get off LAPD property. Failure to comply gets you a bunk downtown."

"We're federal agents," the big, pockmarked ASAC said. "You can't jail us. Are you nuts?"

"You obviously ain't been reading my press releases," Tony sneered.

After a minute of indecision, Zant knew he was beaten. He motioned to the others and they got into their cars.

What followed was low comedy. Everyone was so jammed in down there that turning their vehicles around was next to impossible. Finally they got it done and a trail of red taillights retreated up the ramp.

Tony's chest was still heaving, out of breath from all the adrenaline. "This parking lot ain't secure," he finally said. "We gotta get a metal arm on that entrance." Then he turned and pointed at me. "This was supposed to be a covert op. Where's the fucking marching band?"

"I think this Navigator may still have a few bugs on it," Broadway said.

"All three of you. My office! Five minutes!" Then Tony turned and strode back to the elevator and left us there.

"We're in deep doo," Broadway said.

"Yeah, but at least we won't have to listen to Barry Manilow," I answered.